[00:00:00] Hey, it's Andrew. And just quickly before we start this episode, I want to tell you about one of my favorite podcasts. It's the Bare Knuckles and Brass Tax podcast. Not only does it have a great name, it also has a really good format that's interesting. The two hosts are both named George. That's not what's interesting about it. It's that George K is on the vendor side and George A is a CISO on the customer side.

[00:00:24] And they have real conversations, sometimes with guests, about the world of vendor customer interactions. They're not afraid to call out bad behavior on both sides and talk about the weird and wonderful nature of this world of ours in cybersecurity.

[00:00:38] Recent favors of mine are the one about building trust called taking a flamethrower to FUD and buzzword mumbo jumbo. And also the one with someone who's a field CISO and advisor to startups called how security buyers think and go to market strategies for young companies. I'm not getting paid for this promo. I just really enjoy the show that two Georges put on. Check it out. It's the Bare Knuckles and Brass Tax podcast. Now on with this episode.

[00:01:05] There are 3,800 vendors in cybersecurity right now. So getting attention is tough, especially for less well-known startups. What's especially tough though is getting attention from trade publications, news outlets, TV, blogs and podcasts.

[00:01:22] But done well, there's a huge opportunity for companies like Cyberdonut to get help to rise above the noise, which is why I'm really pleased today to have Liron Kornreich on the podcast. Liron has been a journalist and for the last 10 years has run her own PR company for tech vendors, including many cybersecurity companies.

[00:01:45] In fact, her company just released a cybersecurity brand pulse report where they analyze the PR of six growth stage companies, including the likes of Wiz, Island and Cato Networks to find out what has been working for them. We talk about those learnings and also how they can be applied to an early stage company like Cyberdonut. I'm Andrew Monaghan, and this is a cybersecurity go-to-market podcast where we tackle the question,

[00:02:15] how can Cyberdonut get to $10 million in ARR by the end of 2025? All right, well, Liron, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:34] You are the chief strategist and the owner at SI14 Global Communications, which is a PR agency focused on tech, but you do work with cybersecurity companies as well. Now, one of the things I saw or heard you say was that doing PR in cyber is kind of different to other tech. Why is that? So we've worked over the years with tons of cybersecurity companies.

[00:03:01] It's one of our main areas of expertise, and we also work with a variety of other kinds of tech companies. And what we've noticed is that it's really, really different because at the end of the day, PR, you are trying to get reporters interested in someone's stories. I mean, there are other areas of PR as well, which we'll discuss later. But the top reason people hire a PR agency is get me media coverage.

[00:03:27] And the reporters in the cybersecurity sector are not interested in the same things that reporters in other sectors are. So, for instance, most reporters in cybersecurity are not going to write about your product. There used to be more product news, and there still is some, but it's not as much as it used to be. You really need to tell a different story.

[00:03:51] So, you know, basically, by the way, the cybersecurity trade publications, also many of them don't cover funding news, which is a primary way for a cybersecurity company to get into business press or mainstream tech press. So it's just interesting, and you can't pitch the same story to different, you know, to the different company, the different publications and media outlets in general. You need to customize the story.

[00:04:20] So basically, for product news, it has to really be legitimately major news. And as you probably know, in cybersecurity, there are so many companies now. Like when we started the agency, you know, more than 10 years ago, it wasn't as competitive. Now everybody basically sounds the same. It's really hard to, you know, to get noticed because there's just so much noise. So product news has to be major. It really has to be something groundbreaking for the most part.

[00:04:49] Otherwise, you can maybe expect a little bit of coverage, but that's not going to be the primary driver for your PR. Customer stories. I don't mean to tell you that it's really hard for cybersecurity companies to get their customers to talk because obviously they don't want people to know what the gaps are and how they're trying to close them and all that. But when you're able to do that, it's really a great way to get media coverage, especially since it's so hard.

[00:05:16] Actually, a little bit later on, we'll be talking about a report that SI14 Global did in the cybersecurity sector. And I'll just give you a little preview that Island was able to nail a Wall Street Journal article because it was able to get Pfizer, one of its customers, to share news. Over the years, we've been able to get customers to talk, but yet that's a hard one.

[00:05:42] And then in cybersecurity, the main areas where you can really make a name for yourself are rapid response to breaking news. And I'm happy to give you examples and also original reports analysis surveys. So you almost have to make your own news sometimes to get coverage. And that's not the case for consumer products. It's not the case for a lot of other areas. But in cybersecurity, it's a different game.

[00:06:11] Well, I know in cyber, we do like to feel like we're different. But it's good to hear from a different perspective how sometimes you do have to be different, right? You have to approach the market a little bit differently all the time. You mentioned the report. This is your company's brand, Pulse Report for cybersecurity. To quickly tee it up for those listening, you looked at six companies, Wizz, Sneak, Cato Networks, Clarity, Sierra, and Island. And you mentioned Island before.

[00:06:39] And you looked at what they were doing and what they were able to get in terms of their coverage. You mentioned Island, right? I mean, I think about Island and I think that there's a company that is trying to create a category, right? So they're trying to do things a little bit differently. They do get some coverage out there that I've seen, but perhaps not as much as other companies.

[00:07:00] I noticed in your report, actually, that their share of voice, which is a term I'll probably ask you to explain to us, is a lot lower than some of these other companies in the mix. So it's kind of fascinating to see that they're probably punching a little bit about their weight, it seems like. Yeah. So that's the Brand Pulse Report. Basically, we took the companies that you mentioned and we chose them because they're high growth cybersecurity startups.

[00:07:26] So we figured that these are the kind of companies that other companies are watching, saying, oh, wait, how did you do that? And we analyzed thousands of articles about each of them. And we basically pulled out the best takeaways that other cybersecurity companies can leverage in order to do PR well, because each of them have strengths and weaknesses like any company. So we really focused on what are they each doing well.

[00:07:54] And in the report, other than speaking specifically about what they did, we also have a lot of takeaways and tips, et cetera, on like how you can do it for your own company. And essentially, share a voice, which you mentioned. One of the drivers for the report is that CMOs especially, but also we hear this a lot from CEOs and boards. They're always like, how do we measure PR? How do we measure if we're doing it right?

[00:08:20] And one of the terms that we hear a lot is, you know, tell us what is our share of voice? It's really a key metric to CMOs and boards for understanding a brand's media presence and visibility. But the thing is, is that it can be very, very, very misleading. So you can pull data on share of voice and it could tell you almost nothing about what's actually happening.

[00:08:44] Because share of voice also includes things like when you put out a press release, the press release pickups. Are anyone reading those? They're, you know, like there's a lot of misleading information. And what we did in the report is we removed all that and tell you what's really happening. So like with Island, the example is like their share of voice was actually very low compared to the other companies.

[00:09:06] But that doesn't mean that they're doing it wrong because if you go by quality versus quantity, how valuable is that Wall Street Journal article versus, you know, 50 articles in other, you know, like let's say press release pickups. It's much more valuable. So again, we didn't like, you know, name a winner or anything like that. But when you're trying to reach a high impact publication, then, okay, that's one piece of coverage.

[00:09:33] Your share of voice might be low, but that doesn't mean you don't want to be in the Wall Street Journal, right? So it's tricky. I know people love data and they want to know exactly pinpoint the impact because PR, you know, a lot of times the agency is being paid a significant chunk of, you know, for an outside vendor. And you want like really hard data, but it's so important to break it down and understand quality versus quantity and all these other things that, you know, we explain in the report.

[00:10:00] Now, if I'm the CMO, am I comparing my share of voice against who I think my competitors are or am I looking at the overall market to get that number? That's a great, great question. And that's another thing that's tricky of share of voice. It changes hour by hour, day by day. So if you think about share of voice, like we usually say to when we onboard a new client, one of the first things we do is we kind of do a like a brand pulse type thing for them.

[00:10:24] And by the way, for non-clients too, like they come to us and just ask us as a standalone, you know, what is our brand pulse, what we call it? And the thing is, is that you need to sort of create an ecosystem. So you say, okay, who are my competitors? And they could be direct competitors or they could be people who are making noise in the space because sometimes you're competing for a budget.

[00:10:47] So even if it's not the other cybersecurity company is not doing exactly what you do, if they're close enough that companies are choosing A versus B, they can still be considered a competitor. And you can look at four companies, six companies, 10 companies, but just remember one thing. The way that share of voice works is there is a finite pie. So it's not, and it's based on what buzz is happening at any given day.

[00:11:17] So if your competitor seems to have a huge amount of share of voice suddenly, it might be because for instance, they were just acquired or they're publicly traded. So they have tons of stock news, but that's not the same as products, company, customer story. Do you know what I mean? So like you have to really understand what it is you're looking at and you have to understand that the share of voice changes because the pie is finite.

[00:11:45] So let's say you suddenly have a big announcement. You might then grab share of voice. So we look at it over time, of course, to try to get some sort of accurate, but it can also be really misleading because if you don't look at the actual content, which takes a lot of work. I mean, we're talking in this report, we analyzed literally more than a thousand articles.

[00:12:06] And the thing is, is like, if you have a situation, for instance, we had a client a few years ago that suddenly we were tracking share of voice every quarter or something. And suddenly one of their competitors like skyrocketed. Well, it turns out they had a cyber attack against them. All the media coverage was negative, but their share of voice was amazing. And so, you know, I think anytime that you're trying to measure impact, like it's so important to understand what are your goals? What are you trying to get out of this?

[00:12:34] You know, like if you're talking about cyber donut, right? Like what are the business goals that are and marketing goals that we're trying to support with PR? And then you could know whether you're meeting them as opposed to just saying, oh, just tell me my share of voice with no context or anything. The one company that everyone seems to be asking about these days, how do we emulate Wiz, right? Wiz kind of took off. They did all this amazing stuff and they're valued a gajillion dollars right now and they're all amazing and all the rest of it, right?

[00:13:01] And I think every CEO and CRO, CMO is wondering, how can we emulate that? If I look back though, I mean, they came out of stealth. There was a bit of a, you know, I don't know, rumor mill going that things were going well. I knew some folks that went over there and they were saying, no, this is good. And then suddenly they had that big announcement with fastest company to a hundred million dollars in ARR. And it seems like from then things took off, right?

[00:13:24] And I'm wondering, you know, every company obviously can sit here and say, well, let's just do the PR around our hundred million ARR milestone. So what else did Wiz do well in your mind that got them, that got the snowball going from a PR perspective? So I think, yes, definitely. It helps if you can come out of stealth on day one and announce an a hundred million dollar series A, because for a SaaS company, that is a lot.

[00:13:51] For hardware, sometimes that isn't so much because, you know, hardware, they have more overhead. But I think what's, first of all, interesting is that recently they had announced that, you know, Google's parent company Alphabet was maybe going to acquire them. I actually don't remember off the top of my head if they announced it or if it was like reporters got wind of it. But that I don't remember. But either way, it's really just a little side note.

[00:14:20] It's an interesting story of how just having a rumor or maybe, you know, or an actual report on an actual interest by Alphabet created so much buzz. And then when they rejected the offer, it created even more buzz. So it's interesting because a lot of companies, when there's this kind of thing, like they're very, very quiet about it and they don't understand. Like Wiz is clearly very media savvy.

[00:14:50] They understood that whether this deal happens or not. I mean, I actually don't know that they understood this. I'm making an assumption because I don't work with them. But I'm assuming that they're savvy enough that they understood that whether or not this goes through, it's going to be amazing PR for them. So sometimes they're things that, you know, are worth spreading the word about regardless of whether they go through or not.

[00:15:12] But in terms of takeaways for companies like Cyber Donut and all the actual real companies out there, Wiz understood that they are widely covered in trade outlets. They utilize their research department to publish vulnerabilities. I think that people really underestimate how important the trade publications are. That's what the practitioners are reading. Like, yes, it is amazing. And I don't want to under, you know, like estimate the importance of being in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal.

[00:15:42] But, you know, most of the decision makers in terms of trying your product and buying your product are actually in the industry trades or influential newsletters, you know, et cetera. And so they have really done a great job with their research department of publishing vulnerabilities in the realm of cloud security. And they're breaking news and they're providing commentary on relevant attacks. And I think that that is really a great way for cybersecurity companies to get coverage.

[00:16:12] We've had clients where we were able to get amazing coverage. I'll give you just from a few years ago, just we had, for instance, if you remember, the Log4j vulnerability was in the news for a while, for a few news cycles a couple of years ago. So we spoke to one of our clients about basically turning around some really super relevant research that they were doing.

[00:16:40] And we were able to really quickly pitch it out. And this was a case where it directly generated relevant sales leads with requests for demos, which usually PR is really a top of the funnel activity. And you don't always see the connection between, you know, media coverage, let's say, or analyst reports or whatever and sales. Like, you know, it's one touch point or a few touch points in the sales chain, but it's usually top of the funnel.

[00:17:08] Here was like the CEO called us up and he was so excited because it actually generated sales leads directly. And by the way, it was coverage in the trade publications that generated that. Another time we had a client that was involved with like all different kinds of research in the dark web. And so there were some major ransomware attacks at the time.

[00:17:33] And we were able very quickly to get, we brainstormed with their marketing team, different topics. And they decided with us that we're going to focus on how companies are being affected by these specific attacks that were in the news. And when we received the results, we were able to pull from those, the interesting findings, create our own little report and send them out for coverage. And we got some great, you know, some great coverage from that. So it is doable by even companies that don't have a hundred million dollars to spend.

[00:18:02] Well, let's talk about Cyberdonut now in conjunction with that, right? I mean, they've got a CEO who's not well-known, but he doesn't know the space very well. And it seems to me that to jump on, take Log4j, for example, you know, there's going to be a lot of companies. And if I'm a reporter somewhere, I'm looking for people I recognize or names I trust or whatever.

[00:18:23] How would you advise someone like Cyberdonut or Bill himself to become that person that they actually want to talk to and want to hear from when these things happen? Sure. So first of all, the main thing that people should realize about PR is that you need to stop thinking that everybody wants to hear all day about your product.

[00:18:45] I think that one of the biggest mistakes that executives who are not media savvy, they think that, okay, my big contribution to the conversation is going to be, well, if only you use our product, then you're not going to have this, you know, issue with these kinds of attacks. And that might be the case, but that's not what's going to get you into the news cycle.

[00:19:07] What's going to get you into the news cycle is either original analysis, original data, or sometimes it could be a educated guess. Like we had a client years ago, there was an attack and, you know, most of our clients are very, unless they are 100% sure of who is behind the attack for, you know, obvious reasons, they're not going to go say. But he was fairly certain, you know, and he was able to couch it.

[00:19:36] You know, it's too early to, it was breaking news. It's too early to know, but this has the fingerprint of whatever group it was. And he wasn't afraid, like we had a conversation with him and he's like, but I might be wrong. And we said, okay, but you're, you're explaining that this is an educated guess. And then he was able to explain why and what does this mean and whatever. So there, it wasn't original research. It was just that he was able to bring something to the table. Other people were not going to report, you know, the really big companies were not going to reporters and daring to guess.

[00:20:06] Who is perpetrating this attack and why? They're, you know, they're not going to risk that necessarily unless they're really, it's not always a good thing to do. But in this particular case, it was a very well-educated guess. And he was, and then, and then it's interesting because the reporters in the trade publications and podcasts that are very focused on cybersecurity and things like that, they ask you much more deep questions because their audience, they're knowledgeable and their audience is really knowledgeable. But it's interesting.

[00:20:36] Like we've had clients say to us like, oh, but the wall street journal reporter, they just asked me to explain what does this malware even mean? And they were like, that's so like, so basic. And I'm like, yeah, but think about who's reading their publication. It's not cybersecurity professionals only. It's people who just, you know, maybe you're the CEO of a large corporation in healthcare and you, you know, you're not the CIO or whatever.

[00:20:58] So like, in other words, like it's, it's different audiences and what you bring to the table is different, but definitely you're right that they mostly want to talk to people who are credible and known. So you need to bring something, sometimes if you had a survey or report even a few months ago, but it is the only report that has information that's relevant to this attack, you can go with that too. So Liron, let's learn a little bit more about you personally now.

[00:21:27] I've got my list of the 49 questions I have. The good news is we spin the wheel to just get three, not ask you all 49. So let me just spin the wheel and see what number it comes up with. All right. Number 20. Liron, how did you make money as a kid? It was so much fun.

[00:21:49] I was a dog walker for a while and I love dogs, but I never had, well, I had a dog for a short time, but whatever allergies, this, that, whatever dog walking. That was my solution. Make some money and play with the dogs and, you know, replacement pet. And my dream job was a short stint working at Baskin Robbins. Still my favorite ice cream. Is it? Yes.

[00:22:15] Now going back to dog walking though, were you one of these people that had like one at a time or do you have eight dogs on a leash? I was like in seventh or eighth grade. I had like one dog at a time. Awesome. Let's spin the wheel again. All right. Number 29. What's an embarrassing or memorable moment in your work life that you want to share with us? Sure.

[00:22:43] So one of the most memorable moments for us at my agency was we've been working for more than seven years with a robotics company. They have a robot for older adults, actually. And we've gone to CES with them a few times. And one year we went with them and it was, there were like a lot of reporters super interested in the robot, meeting the robot, talking to the robot, whatever.

[00:23:10] We got so much media coverage, TV, everything. And we even got onto Stephen Colbert. And in the show, he totally like made a huge like amounts of jokes and whatever that were hilarious. And it basically crashed their website. Like they, it was insane. It was really fun. That must be a dream scenario as a PR strategist when the website inbound gets crashed. Exactly. Now, what did the robot do though that was so amazing about it?

[00:23:39] Well, at the time it was a really new concept. Like now it's been in the market for a few years, but the reporters had quote unquote never met a robot like this. And it, it was just like, we had already thought of like a concept with the founder of like funny questions and answers. I was like personable. So the reporter just loved it. And it was just great. I mean, so much work goes into CES.

[00:24:08] I know this program is more for cybersecurity, so it's not really CES. But you're working for months before. So to have such a massive success. And also like Stephen Colbert, like you don't normally get your clients on Stephen Colbert because it's, it's a comedy show. Right. So to be on that for a consumer product like this and have it actually, even though he made fun of it, but not in a mean way. Not, you know, like you have to be able to laugh. The jokes were hilarious. So it was great.

[00:24:38] All right. Let's spin the wheel again. All right. Question number seven. What is the story behind you getting your first client in cybersecurity? So when I first opened my own agency about 11, 12 years ago now, I had initially thought maybe like I was debating agency working in-house somewhere.

[00:25:06] And I was interviewing for a while to work in-house at different companies and like run their like a corporation's PR. And I had actually several interviews with one particular person at one company. And he kept calling me back and telling me like how amazing and it would be said, but then he didn't hire me. And I thought it was really, really bizarre. I was like, why would you keep calling me back and telling me I'm like a great fit and then not hiring me?

[00:25:33] But what I didn't know, I found out a few weeks later that he had taken a job as a CEO for a startup. So he wasn't able to say that. And then I got a phone call once he was able to disclose and he said, the reason I didn't hire you for that is because I want you to work with us on this company. And, you know, I started working for them on my own and then I started growing a team around it.

[00:26:01] And I worked with him at his next company as well. And the CMO that he hired, I still work with to this day. I've worked with that CMO on like six different companies already. So it was also a great way to kickstart an agency. And it was just like the dream client in an amazing sector that was growing. And it was just great. And we're still have, you know, professional relationships to this to this day, which is the best kind of client as one you click with.

[00:26:31] You work together amazing and then you keep working together for years. And how much does personality play in this? Like if you're trying to get the coverage. I think that to me, it's not just about the personality of the executive. It's also what I call the company personality. I've been in this business a long time and I was a reporter for many years before.

[00:26:56] The vast majority of executives and companies are not what I would call like a daring personality. Okay. And there are a lot of reasons for that. There's legitimate business reasons to not want to rock the boat. But when it comes to establishing your name as a thought leader in the space, if you're not either rocking the boat or bringing something, you know, really spectacular or being so dynamic. Like, you know, we're talking about PR.

[00:27:26] We're mostly focusing on media coverage. But PR is also speaking at events and winning prestigious awards and writing opinion pieces or working with your PR agency to write them because not everyone's a great writer. So sometimes you need some help. These days, of course, you know, podcasts and influential newsletters and all that. Like, so if your personality is not so exciting, you know, you're probably not going to get called to speak.

[00:27:55] And if you do, they're probably not going to call you back again. So also, I would recommend, first of all, set ego aside. You know, I think with small startups, there is a small staff usually at the beginning. And, you know, maybe only one person is the spokesperson. Start training other people. And also, if you're the founder and you're not amazing at media, get training. Don't think that you're better at it than you are.

[00:28:21] Like, open your ears when you're getting feedback from a communications professional. Look, some PR agencies and general marketers are, they're not going to tell, like, the boss, yikes, you know, you're not great at this. But, well, I do because I feel like that is my job. My job is to make you look the best you can be. And so if I see that you're not as dynamic as you should be, then it's my responsibility to work with you.

[00:28:46] And if you're never going to be dynamic to then say, okay, you know, why don't you focus on written, you know, you'll be the quote in the press release. You know, and all that. So you'll get your fair share of credit. But maybe this other person should go on stage. That kind of thing. So I do think that you need to be honest with yourself about where, like, your strengths are. And focus on those. And let other people at the company, you know, work on speaking or talking to reporters.

[00:29:13] By the way, one other thing that I will say is that in a media interview, not so much on TV, but, like, you know, basically, like, if it's going to be a write-up, like an article, you can have more than one person. You know, like, maybe you bring in the CTO because he or she is really good at explaining the product and they get very excited. Do you know what I mean? Like, there are ways around it. And I would imagine you might have different people depending on the audience, right?

[00:29:40] So to your point, the trade rags and the ones that are podcasts for, you know, the actual cybersecurity practitioners, you might have a very different person than the person you put in front of, you know, the Wall Street Journal or whoever it might be. For sure. I think it's also based on topic.

[00:29:55] So your CTO or someone in R&D, for instance, when you are, let's say you have an amazing product announcement, it's not necessarily the right opportunity for the CEO who's supposed to be the visionary, you know, to take that interview.

[00:30:11] It might be much more appropriate for someone in research or, you know, like, or the CTO or whatever, you know, to take that interview because think about it like you're trying to usually position the CEO and or founder as thought leaders in the space, as people who really understand how companies should be approaching whatever the challenge is.

[00:30:32] And so if they're, you know, in the weeds explaining, you know, doing a demo, it's not that it's not appropriate, but it just seems more appropriate to let someone more technical do it. Right, right. And you mentioned before about the temptation to talk about product, right? How do you coach someone off that? Because I think it's a default reaction at times, right? You know, I get it, right? If you're building an amazing product and it's 90% of what you talk about inside the company, it's really hard to switch off and talk about something different in front of other people. How do you coach someone on that?

[00:31:02] It's hard because being a thought leader is hard. You actually need to think big thoughts. And a lot of times, you know, even the smartest people, they're so busy working on their product that it just like fills up their whole mind. And what we do is we will bring in items from the news or trends that we're seeing and we'll start asking them, well, how do you see this? How do you see that? What are your customers saying? You know, like different things.

[00:31:31] There are some people that are never going to be able to speak about anything but their product. That's life. But with the right prompting, a lot of people can do it. I will say from a PR perspective, if you want to have an article that is 100% about your product and has, you know, links back to your website and is really salesy, sponsored content. Sponsored speaking. And there is a role for that.

[00:31:58] Like for most of our clients, we do earned and we do sponsored. But you should understand before you spend money on sponsored, what is your goal? And I still think that you want to make whatever sponsored content you're working on interesting. You can't force somebody to listen to your speech. You can't force somebody to read an article. It has to be, you know, you should always be thinking about the perspective of your target audience. Not what is interesting to you. What is useful and interesting to them.

[00:32:26] And I think that is the key mistake that people tend to make is that they're constantly thinking about, well, we want to just tell people about how amazing our product is and, you know, whatever. That's great. But if I don't even understand what why I should care and what problem in my life it's going to solve and how it's going to get me a raise or how it's going to get me a promotion or how it's going to, let's say you're a CISO, stop me from getting fired because I missed this huge thing and we had an attack, right?

[00:32:56] Like you have to think from the other perspective. And the same thing when you're working with the media. What is interesting to the reporter and to their audience? I mean, we prep our clients before they take an interview, but like it's really, really critical to understand that like the story that is going to be interesting to someone who works at dark reading and to their audience is very, very different than the story that is interesting to someone reading Newsweek or Time or something like that. Let's take dark reading as an example then.

[00:33:24] How much time would Bill, the CEO, if he's the appointed person, actually get with a reporter from dark reading? And then how much of his what he talks about will actually end up being an article roughly? So in dark reading, I'll give you a few examples. So first of all, if there's breaking news, then and you didn't break it, right? Like there's like an attack, but it's not that you report it, you know, that you found it. You're just providing commentary and we're able to get commentary.

[00:33:53] Then usually it's like a quote, maybe a few extra sentences. Right. By the way, some people are, I think, mistaken that the only valuable article or podcast or TV interview or whatever is if you're the headline. And I don't think that is accurate at all.

[00:34:12] If you think about your own media consumption, are you more interested in reading about a random company or are you more interested in reading about how to overcome a challenge in cybersecurity for your company? And then hear from four different experts. Do you know what I'm saying? Like those articles are probably going to be read more. I'm not saying there's no value, obviously, and also having articles just about you.

[00:34:36] But even if it's a sentence, you know, it's building brand awareness, it's establishing, you know, and getting yourself in front of audiences that normally you might not be able to get in front of. So there is the opportunity to comment, which might be like a shorter mention. There is original, like if you have a report, a survey, or you found something, like we've had clients where they say, like, we found some vulnerability.

[00:35:03] So then the whole article might be based on your findings and you'll be all over it. You might even be in the headline or the subhead, whatever. And then there's also like dark reading. There's contributed content. There's sponsored content, you know. So in contributed content, usually the mention is in your byline. So, you know, it would be like Bill, CEO of Cyberdonut with a link to Cyberdonut. So it's more light, light touch.

[00:35:30] Sponsored content, you can, you know, put a plug for the company in it, basically. So we've talked about Cyberdonut potentially doing their own research, right? So the space that they're in, let's figure out some angles that would be interesting. Let's go do some research. We've talked about as news comes up, making Bill or whoever might be a natural place for people to go to to get a comment, get an insightful quote that is more than a boring one, right?

[00:35:56] And then we talked about going and getting engagements where they go, you know, Bill goes, speaks at a conference or something like that, right? What else can we learn from these six companies that Cyberdonut should be doing? As a Series A company, right? They don't have a whole ton of money. They don't have a whole ton of people. So they got to use their money and resources wisely. Well, I would say, first of all, that if you are going to an event anyway, for let's say you're going to have a booth at an event, use it also as a PR opportunity.

[00:36:24] So let's talk about, let's say, Black Hat and RSA, which are highly relevant to cybersecurity companies, of course. So first of all, you need to plan ahead because, of course, if you want to apply for a speaking slot or an award, you have to do it months in advance. For Black Hat, if you want a speaking slot, if you want a shot at one, you generally need to unveil original research on stage. That's not the only criteria.

[00:36:53] But if you look at who's speaking, it's usually they're revealing new research sharing. It's an audience of like serious professionals. Like you need to impress them, right? It's not going to be about your product. So you need to be thinking about that in advance. If you're already spending so much money to go to this event, to have a booth, to whatever, how else can you use it, right? So the other thing is that I don't know if people realize that if you are a sponsor at a lot of these events, you can ask for a media list.

[00:37:22] And so whoever is doing your PR, like for our clients, we'll get the media list. And then we will be thinking way in advance. Should we announce something? Should we, you know, like you want something exciting. And then you, there are pros and cons of like, should you announce it before, during, or after the event? But the event itself is an opportunity to meet reporters and analysts face-to-face. Now they're really busy. So you need a reason why to meet with them. Why to meet with them.

[00:37:52] That's a great sentence. Why they should meet with you. So that's something that we work on strategy-wise. Like we might hold an announcement for a month or two if we think it's going to be more impactful for RSA. By the way, we don't really talk about analysts, but analyst relations are another really important thing. I think that one of the biggest mistakes that I see the earlier stage startups make is to rush to have a paid relationship right away.

[00:38:19] When you have a limited budget, I do think analysts play a very important role when you are a little bit more mature. When you have a limited budget, there are many things that you can do for free before you sign up. And if you sign up, like many of our clients have paid relationships with analyst firms, make sure you leverage everything that you are paying for. Because what we discovered years ago is that our clients are paying tens of thousands of dollars for analyst subscriptions.

[00:38:47] Really, some of them, like if you're like a huge company, you might say, okay, whatever. That's just like a drop in my budget. But we had companies where this was like really significant for them. And we were like, have you had any inquiries? Did you ask them this? And we realized like they weren't doing that because they either didn't have time or they didn't know. And analyst relations is something that, you know, the team at SI14 Global does all the time, like really strategically.

[00:39:12] And other than just doing the obvious things you should do, we're also making sure that there's a strategy and that our clients get everything out of it because we know they're paying a lot for it. So, yeah. And RSA, by the way, there are opportunities for early stage startups like Cyber Donut to apply for things like Innovation Sandbox, which if you win or even if you're a runner up, you usually get a little bit of media coverage. And, you know, can open doors for you also on a business level.

[00:39:41] So just be thinking ahead, you know, what can I do? Especially when you're earlier stage, you maybe don't have the budget to do everything. So if something is free or not exorbitantly expensive to apply to and you have, you know, that you feel like you're qualified, then you should obviously jump on that. Yeah. It feels like RSA does a good job on the Innovation Sandbox. They've got the early stage expo. So they're trying to encourage, obviously, the earlier stage companies to help them shine a little bit.

[00:40:10] You brought up something that was interesting to me, a bit of a kind of, I don't know, a hot topic, but this whole concept of pay to play a little bit, right? You're talking about maximizing your analyst relationships. You talked about getting awards, things like that. In reality, like how does this work? If I'm sitting there as Bill and I'm thinking, God, I'd love to be able to get an award. I'd love to be able to, you know, get some sort of mention in a Gartner report somewhere.

[00:40:33] How much of it is, you know, are you going to be a customer to be able to be considered or you have to advertise with the public publication you want the award from? And how much of it is, no, you just got to get positioned right? That's actually a really, really good question. And it really depends. It depends on the analyst firm. It depends on the outlet. There are certain analyst firms that are known as pay to play. And I don't know if your potential customers knew that they're pay to play.

[00:40:59] So if they don't, same thing with awards, like earlier stage companies when they don't have like customer stories and it's harder for them to win serious awards because they can't show yet that they've delivered on a promise, if anything. So sometimes it's just, you know, you start, you just need some logos on your website and a pay to play is fine.

[00:41:18] For us, once a company is a certain maturity level, we recommend heavily to avoid the pay to play because we think that, you know, you should be, if you're as good as you've, you're telling us, then you should be able to win some legit awards. So we flag for our clients, like this is versus no, this is like really a big deal if you win it.

[00:41:40] But I think in terms of also with analyst firms, like I, one of the things that I think that people who don't have a lot of experience with analyst relations, a mistake they make, they think that for instance, if I just pay for a Gartner subscription, I'm going to be in the magic quadrant. So first of all, let's understand that with the magic quadrant, there's a certain revenue minimum that you have to show. So if you're really early stage, you're not going to meet that probably, you know? And so you're not even going to qualify. So you're going to pay all this money.

[00:42:09] Second of all, there's no guarantee that even if you are, you know, have a huge subscription with them, that you're going to make it. Or if you're in the magic quadrant, that you're going to be in the quadrant that's any good. So, so, and that's just why I know people are very, you know, the magic quadrant is very important. That's why I brought it up. But same thing with other analyst firms. Like there are ones that it's totally a real competition, whether you're a client or not.

[00:42:35] If you, you know, like with analyst firms, you can brief them even if you're not a client. They don't have to accept your briefing. But if you have an interesting technology, we find that they'll accept a briefing. And if you really wow them, they might even want a follow-up. Like if you're not so interesting and you don't, you know, knock their socks off, then if you're not paid, you know, don't call me back.

[00:42:56] But we've had a lot of clients that before they signed on for any commitment with an analyst firm, they were able to, you know, like we were able to help them secure briefings. And they really had something amazing. And, you know, so, again, like you mentioned cool vendor. It's also, we've had clients that are Gartner customers that did not get cool vendor and they were so upset. How could it be? I paid and we explained to them.

[00:43:25] It doesn't work that way. And we have clients that were not paying customers and they knocked the analyst socks off and they were cool vendors. So, you know, I can't say that there's no analyst firms that if, you know, it doesn't help, you know, if you are. But it's 100% not a guarantee.

[00:43:43] By the way, one thing that Cyberdonut and other companies can do that we've done with our clients, if they can't afford a full subscription with a firm or if they just don't want it, you know, to do it. I'm not talking about Gartner because they don't really do this, but there are many firms that you can, let's say you're anyway going to do a webinar, do a sponsored webinar with an analyst. If you're anyway going to do a research report, why not have a co-author that's an analyst?

[00:44:12] You know, like we've done that. It's not always the right thing to do, but a lot of times it is. And it's a way to get to know the analyst. They are getting paid for their time, you know, so it's like a foot in the door. But you don't necessarily have to pay for the full annual subscription. And sometimes that could be even more effective for meeting your sales and business goals. So you get the foot in the door and also you get the cachet of an analyst on your webinar, not just your own employees saying how great your stuff is, right? Yes.

[00:44:41] And remember also that while, yes, like, you know, there's like the marquee brands like Gartner, there are certain even individual analysts that are really well known and highly regarded. And if you bring them on to do a report with you or a webinar, people in the space know who they are. So it's just everything should align with your business and marketing goals. Every time that you decide to do something, it should be like, why am I doing this? And then that will guide how to do it and who to do it with.

[00:45:11] So we're reaching the end of time here, Leron. One of my big takeaways from this is the importance of being or having something unique and interesting beyond your product or your company, right? Because I think if I look through doing the research, getting on the news cycle, having something interesting about the person or the company, things you're talking about, that seems to be a big, big part of it.

[00:45:33] Being able to draw that out so that someone who hasn't heard of you before might actually want to take the interview and use your quotes, et cetera, right? Yeah. Actually, one of the most important things, which we didn't get to, so I'll make sure we squeeze it in here, is that, you know, like, why PR in the first place? You might say, well, Cyberdonut has a limited budget. And why?

[00:45:55] One of the issues that you had mentioned in previous podcasts is that they don't necessarily have brand recognition, credibility, validation. Now, how much more credible is media coverage, which is third-party sources, analysts, awards, events? Like, those are third-party credibility assets, right? As opposed to, I'm not saying that it's not super important to also have an amazing blog and to have a great, you know, your website be beautiful and all that.

[00:46:24] But in terms of building a brand, growing brand awareness, and having credibility, that is where PR comes in. So that's, to me, the why. Why do it in the first place? We run with that. We'll wrap this up. Great point to finish off with. If someone wants to get hold of you and or get the report, what's the best way to get hold of you?

[00:46:46] So the best way to get hold of me and also the report and also lots of other really relevant tips and et cetera is at our website, si14global.com. SI14, like silicon on the periodic table. So si14global.com. And you can reach me. You can write a note to me directly through our general contact page and just, you know, mention that you heard of me through this podcast.

[00:47:16] I know, you know, who you are. You could get a copy of the report. And there's lots of other valuable information there. So, and good luck to everybody on their PR journey. Well, there's 3,800 vendors out there right now. So everyone's trying to scramble and get their unfair share of attention. So really appreciate you joining us today and talking through the report, but also how Cyberdonut could tackle this awareness problem that they have. So thanks for joining us. Sure. Thanks, Andrew.

[00:47:56] It would mean a lot to me and to the continued growth of the show if you'd help get the word at. So how do you do that easily? There are two ways. Firstly, just simply send a link to a friend. Send a link to the show, to this episode. You can email it, text it, Slack it, whatever works for you and is easy for you. The second way is to leave a super quick rating. And sometimes that can seem complicated. So I've made it as easy for you as I can.

[00:48:24] You simply have to go to ratethispodcast.com slash cyber. That's ratethispodcast.com slash cyber. And it explains exactly how to do it. But either of these ways will take you less than 30 seconds to do, and it will mean the world to me. So thank you.